Blog - Archive for Health Care Law News

Based upon a reconsideration appeal prepared by the Firm on behalf of a revoked physician provider, First Coast Services Options reversed the revocation of the physician’s Medicare billing privileges. Following an almost yearlong investigation by SafeGuard Services and CMS, the Medicare billing privileges of the physician were revoked. The Firm reviewed the basis for the Read more →

Tags : Medicare

During the annual meeting of the American Health Lawyers Association, representatives from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”), announced the creation of a designated litigation team exclusively focused on civil monetary penalties and exclusion cases, with a particular focus on physicians. The OIG team will provide an Read more →

Tags : False Claims Act , Healthcare compliance , United States Department of Health and Human Services

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced effective January 31, 2014, a six-month moratorium continues for new and pending applications for home health agency providers and suppliers in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties and begins in Broward County. The moratorium, invoked under the Affordable Care Act, also affects other large metropolitan cities such as Read more →

Tags : Affordable Care Act , Medicaid , Medicare

According to a recent HHS-CMS directive that went into effect on January 15, 2014, “CMS has learned from contractors that providers are abusing the program and not changing inappropriate behavior even after extensive education to address these behaviors.” Such providers have now been deemed “recalcitrant,” and the “recalcitrant” category is one into which Medicare providers Read more →

Tags : Healthcare compliance

Under a recent settlement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Affinity Health Plan, Inc., settled potential violations of the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules for $1,215,780. HHS-OCR’s investigation revealed that Affinity impermissibly disclosed (without consent) the protected health information of up to 344,579 individuals when it returned multiple photocopiers to a Read more →

Tags : HIPAA compliance , United States Department of Health and Human Services